How to Build Self-Confidence
Have you ever wondered what it takes to be confident, or how confident people make it seem so natural? Self confidence can be difficult to practice, especially for people who are shy or constantly second-guess everything they do, but it's not impossible! In this article we're sharing five helpful tips to help you boost your self-confidence and be the best version of yourself.
5 Tips to Help You Build Self-Confidence
It’s not wrong to enjoy affirmation from others. In fact, this can be a great motivator! But when you find that you only need other people’s recognition to feel good about yourself, that may be a sign that you need to work on building some self-confidence.
Here are a few confidence-boosters to get you started on the road to self-confidence:
1. Look Inside, Not Outside
It’s easy to get caught up in the frenzy of who wore it best or who did it better, and if you are not careful and gentle with yourself, you might find that you are becoming increasingly unhappy with yourself. The moment that you stop comparing yourself with those around you is the moment that you begin to see how you are enough and how much you truly matter. So, be happy for those around you when they succeed in what they love to do, but also be grateful to yourself for making it this far.
2. Surround Yourself With Positive People
Think about five people who you spend the most amount of time with. What kind of conversations do you have with them? How do they make you feel? Do they support you in your aspirations, or do find that they often bring you down? The people around you can have a great effect on the way that you think about yourself. Don’t forget to surround yourself with people who want the best for you and inspire you to be the best you can be.
3. Eat, Sleep, Move, Connect
It might come as a surprise, but our well-being as humans is related to our self-confidence. After all, we all just have one body, and it is always doing its best to help us survive and stay well. Good things that we can do to help our bodies are:
- Eat well and get all the nutrients that we need.
- Sleep well so our bodies can recharge.
- Move and exercise to improve our feelings about our bodies.
- Connect with those who make us feel good about ourselves.
4. Be Kind to Your Mind
Compassion is the opposite of unkindness. If you must remember one thing, it is that you must be kind to your mind. This means that the moment you feel least deserving of compassion and kindness is the exact moment that you must send yourself all the love that you need. This will help you challenge critical thoughts and enhance your compassion for yourself, thus increasing your self-confidence.
5. If You Can’t Beat It, Face It
At the very heart of insecurity is a deep fear of something. Once you feel that you have developed enough self-compassion, it may be that you would like to explore what this fear is. If you feel safe enough within yourself, you can even think about facing this fear head on. Another way to get past this fear is to ask for help – something that takes a lot of courage and confidence.
Self-Confidence and Why It Matters
As effortless as it may seem, self-confidence is not something that is easy to come by. There’s a saying that goes “you are your own worst critic” and it is true! Your minds pick up on the slightest hints that often lead you to think that you don’t match up with the people around you.
A small mistake is often amplified, leading to a series of critical statements directed toward yourself. The worst part is that the things you tell yourself – “I’m not good enough, not smart enough, not trying hard enough” – are things that you would never dream of saying to your friends, family, or loved ones.
But what does it mean to be confident within yourself, and what could that feel like? To have self-confidence means that you know yourself well enough to trust your own ability and judgement.
When you feel confident, you feel worthy of your own love, no matter what other people may think about you, and this applies to any situation you find yourself in.
Self-Confident vs. Self-Critical
It might be difficult to know what this looks like if you have never felt confident. You might find it difficult to like yourself, and that is perfectly okay. You might have had experiences where you were constantly put down and never built up by those around you. However, understanding that you have some work to do when it comes to creating a sense of self-confidence is often the first step to being and feeling confident.
Some people might associate self-confidence with raising their hand in class, or talking over everyone at meetings, but true confidence doesn’t always have to manifest in those behaviors. Having confidence can be doing what you believe is right, even though other people ridicule you for this. On the other hand, those who struggle with self-confidence can act based on what others think of them.
Another lesser-known manifestation of confidence is waiting for others to recognize you or your accomplishments and feeling validated even in the absence of recognition. Believe it or not, this is a sign of someone who is confident within themselves. Interestingly, those who might not feel so confident might over-emphasize on their accomplishments to as many people as possible.
Being Your Best Self
The great irony of self-confidence is that everything you need to be the person you want to be is already within yourself. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to developing self-confidence, especially when you have endured criticism and faultfinding. The key is to be gentle with yourself and not be afraid to start again when you fail, because you will at some point! Everybody fails, and that is okay.